ReBuILt ‘BB’ NO. 34053 SIR KEITH PARK

Named in honour of Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Rodney Park, No. 34053 is the most recent ‘Light Pacific’ to have returned to steam. Like No. 34028 Eddystone, Sir Keith Park was allocated to Bournemouth MPD and regularly traversed the S&D, often hauling the ‘Pines Express’. The locomotive was purchased for preservation from Barry scrapyard by Charles Timms in 1979, but it would be another five years before No. 34053 left the yard for the former Hull Dairycoates depot for restoration. Over the following years, Sir Keith Park earned a reputation of being a ‘no hoper’ and was moved from pillar to post until Jeremy Hosking bought it in 1997 as spares for his other Bulleid ‘Pacific’, No. 34046 Braunton. As SLL had done contract work on Braunton, they were given the opportunity to buy No. 34053 once it was deemed surplus to requirements in 2000. Sir Keith Park might have remained unrestored, had a generous shareholder not supported the restoration - the original plan had been to restore Sidmouth once Manston was completed in 2008. Despite being restored in Purbeck, Sir Keith Park has never been based at the Swanage Railway, and is only making its first visit to the line in March this year for the railway’s ‘Strictly Bulleid’ gala. No. 34053 has called the Severn Valley Railway its home since returning to steam in May 2012, and runs alongside ‘West Country’ No. 34027 Taw Valley.